There are problems in America with freedoms of expression, and privacy. Yes, that is a completely accurate statement to make.

Yes, there are problems with the Government attempting to spy on it's citizens.

However, anyone who would compare us, in an honest and non-ironic fashion, to a country like Iran, or Nazi Germany, or Maoist China/Stalinist Russia, needs a good, hard cockpunch from someone who actually lived through those regiemes and managed to escape them.

hardinparamedic:There are problems in America with freedoms of expression, and privacy. Yes, that is a completely accurate statement to make.

Yes, there are problems with the Government attempting to spy on it's citizens.

However, anyone who would compare us, in an honest and non-ironic fashion, to a country like Iran, or Nazi Germany, or Maoist China/Stalinist Russia, needs a good, hard cockpunch from someone who actually lived through those regiemes and managed to escape them.

Subby's wrong: I found nothing to refute in the article. Just because a regime isn't shooting and labor camping people left and right doesn't mean people are free. How about being able to protest without being arrested? How about laws in ordinary peoples' favor instead of against?

Agent Smiths Laugh:hardinparamedic: There are problems in America with freedoms of expression, and privacy. Yes, that is a completely accurate statement to make.

Yes, there are problems with the Government attempting to spy on it's citizens.

However, anyone who would compare us, in an honest and non-ironic fashion, to a country like Iran, or Nazi Germany, or Maoist China/Stalinist Russia, needs a good, hard cockpunch from someone who actually lived through those regiemes and managed to escape them.

Perhaps, but keep things like this little gem in mind when you say that.

Well you're supposed to transport sodium on the ground and it was transported in the air. An unfortunate mix up but living in remote Alaska, he should have known better.

hardinparamedic:There are problems in America with freedoms of expression, and privacy. Yes, that is a completely accurate statement to make.

Yes, there are problems with the Government attempting to spy on it's citizens.

However, anyone who would compare us, in an honest and non-ironic fashion, to a country like Iran, or Nazi Germany, or Maoist China/Stalinist Russia, needs a good, hard cockpunch from someone who actually lived through those regiemes and managed to escape them.

From someone who lived under one of those regimes:

What struck me after living in the US for a while, was the similarity, at a very fundamental level, between the US and Soviet systems: while the means by which they attain their objectives differ, the objectives themselves are, for all practical purposes, the same: control and exploitation of the public. Both systems indoctrinate with propaganda from childhood. But because the Soviet system had coercion at its disposal, the propaganda did not need to be convincing: if you stepped out of line, the government came hard after you. That's why propaganda could be blatant and absurd, and the public was fully aware of it and did not believe it, only pretended to. That is also one reason why the Soviet system collapsed.

The US system cannot use coercion (well, not at the Soviet level, at any rate, but the way things are going, give it time), so it must rely solely on propaganda, which must be believed. This means it's got to be very subtle and psychologically simple and attractive, rather than blatant and absurd, to be at once unobtrusive and effective. It's no coincidence that the mother of marketing and advertising originates here. If you step out of line, the government does not need to come after you: business, the media, and even the public itself will. They cannot jail, torture, or disappear you (the system is testing the waters, though), but they will try to marginalize you, and make it very difficult to function professionally and socially. And at least insofar as members of the public are concerned, they are enforcers without realizing it. Quite elegant.Otherwise put, under Soviet "communism", everybody must believe without questioning in the party, which almost nobody did; under US "capitalism", everybody must believe without questioning in "the market", which almost everybody does (I use quotes, because neither system is the true thing, as they pretend).--Fabian Pascal.

While I haven't read Orwell, I think Subby has no clue what he is talking about. Brave New World was in a very advanced society, but not a free one, and the Matrix was about people who were ignorant of what was going on around them.

This also leads me to question the mods here at Fark. Really, you guys greenlit this one?

hardinparamedic:There are problems in America with freedoms of expression, and privacy. Yes, that is a completely accurate statement to make.

Yes, there are problems with the Government attempting to spy on it's citizens.

However, anyone who would compare us, in an honest and non-ironic fashion, to a country like Iran, or Nazi Germany, or Maoist China/Stalinist Russia, needs a good, hard cockpunch from someone who actually lived through those regiemes and managed to escape them.

leevis:sheep snorter: 1953: The CIA farks over Iran by overthrowing the legitimate rulers and putting in a mildly religious government.

circa 1980: the traitor Ronald Reagan makes it worse with putting in a by secretly negotiating with the extra extremist religious government as a candidate and using hostages as a way to be called victorious as the new President.

StoPPeRmobile:hardinparamedic: There are problems in America with freedoms of expression, and privacy. Yes, that is a completely accurate statement to make.

Yes, there are problems with the Government attempting to spy on it's citizens.

However, anyone who would compare us, in an honest and non-ironic fashion, to a country like Iran, or Nazi Germany, or Maoist China/Stalinist Russia, needs a good, hard cockpunch from someone who actually lived through those regiemes and managed to escape them.

Exactly! No one should ever critique the Homeland.

I'm more troubled by the concept of good as it pertains to cock punches.

Senseless_drivel:leevis: sheep snorter: 1953: The CIA farks over Iran by overthrowing the legitimate rulers and putting in a mildly religious government.

circa 1980: the traitor Ronald Reagan makes it worse with putting in a by secretly negotiating with the extra extremist religious government as a candidate and using hostages as a way to be called victorious as the new President.

buzzcut73:Senseless_drivel: leevis: sheep snorter: 1953: The CIA farks over Iran by overthrowing the legitimate rulers and putting in a mildly religious government.

circa 1980: the traitor Ronald Reagan makes it worse with putting in a by secretly negotiating with the extra extremist religious government as a candidate and using hostages as a way to be called victorious as the new President.

buzzcut73:Senseless_drivel: leevis: sheep snorter: 1953: The CIA farks over Iran by overthrowing the legitimate rulers and putting in a mildly religious government.

circa 1980: the traitor Ronald Reagan makes it worse with putting in a by secretly negotiating with the extra extremist religious government as a candidate and using hostages as a way to be called victorious as the new President.

From 1984 (and delivered brilliantly in the film by Richard Burton in his last role) :

All the confessions that are uttered here are true. We make them true. And above all we do not allow the dead to rise up against us. You must stop imagining that posterity will vindicate you, Winston. Posterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean out from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you, not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You will never have existed.'